It has been told that age of electronic document golden days needless of paper is coming as a computer system makes progress and spreads. The electronic document is commonly used in deed. However, a quantity of paper practically increases, significantly. That is, a sheet document currently prevails the electronic document in terms of easy edition and the like owing to listing and handling performances. Further because, a mastership level of a user is sometimes insufficient when a keyboard and the like are operated to handle an electronic document. Many people find it more convenient to print out an electronic document on a sheet, and it is practically true when statistics of a usage volume of the sheet document is taken.
Never the less, many people store the electronic document after printing the electronic document onto the sheet. A document previously used in a presentation or the like is sometimes used again. For example, necessary pieces are sometimes extracted from materials previously created for giving presentations to edit and create a new presentation document to be used. Specifically, a desired electronic material is retrieved from an electronic document previously created, and a necessary document and a page is picked up among those to create a new document.
However, it is sometimes burdensome to open much electronic material and extract a prescribed material not only when editing the electronic material for presentation. Then, a technology of combining a plurality of electronic documents like a sheet document has been proposed as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open NO. 2000-331031. Specifically, a method of creating a document by selecting and combining the plurality of electronic documents and a user interface are proposed.
However, the Japanese Patent Application Laid Open NO. 2000-331031 only handles an electronic document and describes none of methods of extracting a material using the sheet document. Thus, potential needs for using a sheet document can't be satisfied.
Further, when a prescribed material such as a sheet document exists at hand, the sheet document is sometimes inputted to a scanner and a CCD camera, so that it is converted into image data. However, a quality of the sheet document deteriorates on a display when converted into the image data and displayed. Further, image data, especially, color image data, is inconvenient in terms of storage and handling due to a large size of a file. Further, since it is difficult to divide image data into several objects, material including image data converted from a sheet document is not easily edited.